Detroit’s No-Tax Property Tax

As I have been fond of reciting, Detroit’s city government is so inept and thus so powerless that it can accomplish almost nothing outside of the scope of employing and paying its inept and entitled employees. The city can’t even collect $130M owed to it in property taxes, even while it is on the verge of immediate financial insolvency. According to this story[2], almost half of Detroit city property owners did not pay up last year. Many of the non-paying residents are refusing to pay because they no longer receive city services that their taxes are supposed to be financing.

“Nearly half of the owners of Detroit’s 305,000 properties failed to pay their tax bills last year, exacerbating a punishing cycle of declining revenues and diminished services for a city in a financial crisis,” the report notes, citing more than 200,000 pages of tax documents.

“Some $246.5 million in taxes and fees went uncollected, about half of which was due Detroit and the rest to other entities, including Wayne County, Detroit Public Schools and the library,” the report adds.

In fact, according to The News, delinquency in the shattered city is so bad that that 77 blocks had only one owner who paid taxes in 2012.

The county government is so overwhelmed by foreclosures that it is “looking the other way” on property seizures. An inept, powerless government is one step closer to no government. Thanks to Jackie Brentwood for the story. This is cross-posted at my new blog, “Detroit: From Rust to Riches[3].”